Echoes Of Indies

Groups That Push The Outside Of The Envelope Are On Center Stage

Every decade or so comes a great shift, a cultural upheaval that drags popular music away from safe choices and toward the unexpected.

Here comes the next one.

Consider it the Strokes-ing and White Stripes-ing of America. Those critically acclaimed and now commercially viable groups have come to represent a new vanguard that prefers a jagged, aggressive, anti-ordinary style over the homogenized slickness of the TRL set or the shallow rage of nu-metal.

They are not alone. Bursting out of Sweden are the Hives, garage-punk revivalists who have a penchant for classy uniforms. The buzz about the band, helped by steady video rotation on MTV2, has gotten so loud that its 2000 collection, Veni Vidi Vicious, is being rereleased by Warner Bros.

There's also And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, a wrecking crew out of Austin, Texas, that takes the lovesick anguish of what once was called "emo" and obliterates it with noise. And there's the synthetic pulsation of the Faint and the intense introspection of Bright Eyes, fringe sensations from a fervently watched scene in Omaha, Neb

Plus, many who have been put through the major-label wringer are happy again -- and garnering greater financial success -- within the nurturing walls of Indie- land, whether cult heroes (Paul Westerberg on Vagrant, Tom Waits on Anti/Epitaph, Joe Strummer on Hellcat, Frank Black on What Are Records?) or experienced outfits like Girls Against Boys (which has moved to Jade Tree).

Clearly some kind of coup is brewing. Yet even the most hopeful among industry insiders think its subversive forces remain on standby.

"It's weird how it's developing this time," says Dan Geller, co-founder of Athens, Ga., indie label Kindercore and a member of neo-new-wave outfit I Am the World Trade Center. "When we started, in 1996, I had this grand vision that within five years we'd have this musical revolution that would sweep across the nation. I thought a band like the Strokes would show up and things would change overnight.

"And people are interested. But they're not so interested that they'll give up Britney just yet. This time it's happening much slower. I mean, excitement for the Strokes started more than six months ago, and they're just now getting on radio. It's taking much more effort for a return of the indie sound to happen."